Blog
Stubborn is Good
There are many different ways to acquire skills in the martial arts other than from instruction. To illustrate by example, I was having difficulty, for some time, submitting one of my ‘stubborn’ blue belt grappling students (let’s call him Jim) who always defends himself by laying down as a corpse and clinging onto his lapels. He can't do
much from that position but at least he can survive. So I gave it a shot at Rob’s BJJ school the other night. It worked well until my opponent pulled a ‘rabbit out of a hat’ and I ended being choked out by the lapel of his Gi.
So you can guess what happened next when I was wrestling with Jim again. With a sense of Déjà-Vu, Jim’s on his back again and I pulled the same ‘rabbit out of the hat’. Now that’s what I call magic!
So learning can also be acquired from what other people do to you. In this case I have learnt something and so has Jim. I guess you can say it’s a ‘win, win’ situation. We become very good at something and then, almost always, somebody finds a way to conquer it, which can be a good thing because it stimulates us to come up with something else.
I wonder what Jim is going to come up with next.
GA
Win some, Lose some
Winning is not everything in the martial arts. Many times losing is the key to success, in the long run anyway. Win less, to learn more. Losing is part of anybody’s game, some more, others less. Losing keeps our minds engaged so we can analyse where we might have gone wrong.
The trick is to improve your ‘win’ percentages and that can only happen with continued training and perseverance. There will be times when your winning percentages take a llittle dive which usually happens when you move to another level (wrestling or sparring better opponents), but that does not mean you haven't improved, it's just that you needed to move up a notch for the next phase of development.
To maintain the 'win' percentages, one has to know how much emphasis to place on attack or defence but that should not discourage anyone to try something new. If you have good defence, there is a good chance you won't get tapped out or knocked down but just remember if you neglect your defence, a better opponent might just capitalise on your mistakes. Again, that is not a bad thing because you learn from that too. To quote, ‘I am not sticking my arm out like that again’.
You have to be in it to win it!
GA
Excuses, excuses, excuses!
After a big weekend with Richard Norton last week and feeling a little worse for wear, I was asked by one of the students on the Monday night why I was not home resting. I thought 'being tired' is a poor excuse. The next thing you know, you need to take the night off because you think you’re tired. We are all susceptible to this syndrome of coming up with excuses to try and justify to ourselves and others of not feeling guilty.
We are in the business of martial arts; we are athletes. We all work hard and enjoy what we do. For me it’s truly amazing at the parental support for children, something that I didn’t have growing up (times were different for some of us as kids). I have noticed this particularly in the last couple of weeks by some parents appealing our decisions for their children lacking hours to qualify for testing. Whilst there were many reasons for the lack of attendance, most parents wanted to take the fall by blaming themselves. As an Instructor, I find that inspirational, which shows how genuinely interested parents are in their children. But everybody has to accept the fact that excuses can be detrimental to progress.
I like to feel tired after a session, not before a session.
GA